This document provides details about the theory behind the development of Safety
Performance Indicators (SPIs) in seven major areas which are central to the fields of activity
in road safety in Europe. The fields of activity were selected as a result of reviews of national
road safety plans in many of the EU countries and around the world and are considered the
central themes of activity in road safety, necessary to bring about a significant improvement
in road safety in the EU countries.
Within each field SPIs were developed which are directly related to that field of activity, can
be quantitatively measured, can provide the basis for the assessment of the level of road
safety in each country and can serve as an indicator to describe the level of activity in that
field and country and can provide a yardstick for comparison. Comparisons can be before
and after certain actions are taken or can be comparisons between countries.
As stated above, this document deals with the theory behind the development of each of the
seven SPIs. It provides the rationale behind their development, the proofs for their relevance
in the specific fields and the existing limitations that led to the adoption of the specific SPIs.
The document provides also some recommendations for the possible improvements required
to obtain better SPIs. Two companion documents are also being prepared. One is a manual
which provides details on the procedures necessary to collects the required data for the
development of each SPI in each country. The second document provides results on the
data collected so far for each of the 25 EU countries and the SPIs developed so far, based
on the data submitted by each of the countries. It can be seen that a lot of work still has to be
done, both in collecting the necessary data and in improving the SPIs, once better and more
detailed data becomes available.

Description:

This is a report. It is also available at: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/wcm/road_safety/erso/safetynet/fixed/WP3/sn_wp3_d3p6_spi_theory.pdf

Sponsor:

Project co-financed by the European Commission, Directorate-General Transport and Energy [Contract No: TREN-04-FP6TR-S12.395465/506723]